Mud Pond Museum of Art

October 26, 2009
Mud Pond, Moreau Lake State Park, NY



Early last week I visited Mud Pond, to sit and watch the geese come in.
They arrive in waves, just around noontime. Most likely, their bellies are full of corn, gleaned during the mornings from nearby harvested fields.
When the first group arrives, they float quietly on the Pond. Suddenly there’s a stirring among them, and followed by urgent honking. Faint reply-honks come from on high, over the ridge, as another group arrives. They circle around, coming in to face the wind.


A hundred feet up, they intentionally tumble back and forth, spilling the air from their wings, an efficient way to lose altitude.
That creates a whuffling noise unlike any other you will hear.


Once into the wind, they assume a position not unlike a ski-jumper – using their webbed feet as brakes.


With a graceful splash, they are back to earth, or rather, water.

Then follows the usual goosey networking chatter.
That barely subsides when another group arrives, then another, till the pond is full of geese.


Mixed in among them today on the water are hooded mergansers, some wood ducks, and one juvenile cormorant.


What follows are just a few of the paintings I saw in this
Mud Pond Museum of Living Art.
(“The Mud,” as aficionados affectionately call it.)
If you go walking in this Gallery, you will see some of Nature’s masterpieces.

Some of the works are part of a temporary, travelling exhibit
(such as The Canada Geese.)

Others are part of the Permanent Collection (our Evergreen Room.)
You will sit within scenes that bring to mind the palette, the brushstrokes, and the vigor of the great Impressionists and Post-Impressionists: Seurat … Monet … Gauguin …
Van Gogh … and Turner.

Enter here:














(Thanks for coming. Be sure to visit the Cubism Exhibit, arriving in January of 2010!)